Chasing Simple: Living a Good Life

What does it mean to live a good life? What is important for you to do in your lifetime? What makes you happy and fulfilled? These questions can help us progress toward the life we want.

The older I get, the more I realize how precious time is. This has brought me to be more mindful about how I spend my time.

I’m 54 now and I’m feeling a pull to dive deep into what I want for my life, how I can help others, what’s important, and what makes the people around me (and myself) happy and content. After much contemplation, I take action and put things most important to me into action on a regular basis. I find if I’m not mindful and thinking about priorities, life quickly passes without doing the things I love and the things that help others. I want a joyful life.

I want to be happy, at peace and content. And I want that for my family as well. My husband (when talking about how we should approach handling our dogs in the house) always says, calm hands make a calm dog… and, interestingly, that works for us as moms as well. When Mom is calm and trusts everything will work out, peacefulness is passed on to the family.

Things I’m making a priority in my life:

  • Make God a priority, meditating with prayer and finding quiet time for reading the Bible weekly.
  • Being a great wife, daughter, mother and friend.
  • Continue on my quest of eating healthy and exercising consistently. I want to be independent and capable as I age. OK, I also want to be Strong and able to do what the young girls do as long as I can!! LOL
  • I want to Help others live a good life. Three categories:
    1) Volunteer at Tubman Alliance (domestic violence shelter for women) or anotheramazing organization
    2) Help girls and women become stronger, healthier and happier with their bodies
    3) Help people budget money so they have financial freedom, which means making decisions about their finances according to what is important to them. I especially enjoy working with the younger generation, teaching them to think about financial freedom while they have time on their side to make big things happen.
  • Travel –– I haven’t done much so far, but starting to plan trips to be in the sunshine!
  • Be Amazed and Grateful –– I want to be amazed and grateful at life itself. My husband is an amazing teacher of this philosophy. I need to follow his lead. He always tells me “be amazed,” even at the little things in life.

    It’s so important for all of us to become clear about what makes us happy and what makes us feel most alive. I hope you spend time quietly and deliberately thinking about this, so you can create it in your own life.
    I hope you try it, so you can create it. And when your personal vision for a joyful life takes shape, please share it with us. Tell us what “living a good life” means to you.

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Jill Strand